What Does Jeremiah 25:6 Mean?
Do not walk after other gods to serve them and bow down to them, and do not provoke me to anger with the works of your hands, and I will do you no hurt.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
And go not after other gods to serve them, and to worship them, and provoke me not to anger with the works of your hands; and I will do you no hurt.THE KEY
The verse exposes the maker’s reversal: the hands make the god, then the maker’s labor and body bow to it.
THE MEANING
The verse traces allegiance from pursuit into service and bodily bowing: what your hands make can become what your hands serve. That divided allegiance provokes God. The same sentence holds a promise: “I will do you no hurt.”
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that what you make or invest in can safely claim your service.
THE ROOT
לְעָבְדָם
le’avdam
GROWS FROM
עבד
ʿavad means to work, labor, or serve.
“serve” in this verse is le’avdam. The root holds work, service, and servitude together. Beside “the works of your hands,” it sharpens the reversal: human labor makes what the maker then enters into service to.
ALSO GROWS
avodah: work, labor, or service
עֲבֹדָה
It shows that serving these gods involves labor and devotion, not only an inward opinion.
eved: servant
עֶבֶד
The servant word grows from the same root as serving, bringing the person’s posture into view.
מַעֲשֵׂי
ma’asei
GROWS FROM
עשה
ʿAsah means to do or make.
“works” in this verse is ma’asei. Ma’aseh can name both an act and a made thing. With “your hands,” the verse brings the deed and its product close together: what people make can become what they serve.
ALSO GROWS
ma’aseh: deed, work, or thing made
מַעֲשֶׂה
This noun makes the link between human action and its result explicit.
ʿasah: did or made
עָשָׂה
The verb names the making that lies beneath the “works” attributed to human hands.
וּלְהִשְׁתַּחֲוֹת
ulehishtachavot
GROWS FROM
שחה
Shachah means to bow low or prostrate oneself.
“bow down to” in this verse is ulehishtachavot. The word translated “worship” carries a bodily posture: bowing down. The verse’s sequence moves from going after, to serving, to placing the body low before another power.
ALSO GROWS
hishtachavah: bowing down or prostration
הִשְׁתַּחֲוָה
It names the posture expressed by the worship in this verse.
mishtachaveh: one who bows down
מִשְׁתַּחֲוֶה
It shows the same root describing the person taking that posture.
THE PATTERN
When human making is treated as ultimate, the maker’s labor and allegiance turn toward the thing made.
Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands.And the remainder of it he makes into a god, his hewn image, and falls down to it, and bows down, and prays to it, and says, "Snatch me, for you are my god."who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and bowed down and served the creation beside the one who created, who is praised for the ages. Amen.THE THREAD
Those who make them are like them, everyone who leans on them.Jeremiah’s “works” and the Psalm’s “make” share the root עשה (ʿasah, “do” or “make”). The Psalm completes the reversal: the maker becomes like the thing made, showing how service to a hand-made god reshapes the one who serves it.
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